Tanks growled across Red Square and fighter jets streaked overhead on Saturday as Russia celebrated the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War with a display of military might.

Moscow’s rift with the US and Europe was strikingly apparent as anti-Western leaders lined up with President Vladimir Putin to watch 15,000 troops march below the walls of the Kremlin.

The Russian president’s guests underlined the split with the war-time allies including Britain, France and the United States, whose leaders boycotted the event in protest at Moscow’s intervention in the Ukraine crisis.

Instead, the stands in front of Lenin’s mausoleum were filled with a motley group including leaders from Central Asia and the Caucasus, Raul Castro of Cuba, Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the leader of Egypt.

Guest of honour was Xi Jinping, the president of China, in a sign of flourishing Sino-Russian ties in the face of EU and US sanctions on Moscow.

Barack Obama, the US president, and David Cameron, the Prime Minister, both snubbed the event. The UK sent Sir Nicholas Soames, the former defence minister and grandson of Sir Winston Churchill. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, also skipped the festivities but is due to lay wreath at Moscow’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Sunday.

The parade was the biggest of its kind ever held. Phalanxes of soldiers paraded in their thousands across Red Square before 200 pieces of military hardware rumbled across the cobbles.

Russian servicemen march during the Victory Day parade in Red Square, Moscow (AP)

In a speech, Mr Putin did not touch on the Western boycott. "Our fathers and grandfathers went through unbearable suffering, deprivation and losses," he said, paying tribute to the country’s veterans and the "grandeur of Victory over Nazism".

"We are grateful to the people of Great Britain, France and the United States for their contribution to victory," he added.

The Russian president also made no mention of the war in Ukraine, where pro-Moscow rebels are fighting troops of the country’s pro-Western government. But he hinted at tension with Washington saying that, "in the past decades we have seen attempts to create a unipolar world".

Tens of thousands of Russians lined the pavements as new T-14 Armata tanks and missile launchers moved at a clip through Moscow streets beyond the square.

Armoured personnel carriers were followed by self-propelled artillery units. People bunched at crash barriers, scrambled onto walls and raised wobbling selfie-poles with cameras in the air to glimpse and record the moment.

Groups of helicopters and fighter jets passed overhead: one group forming the number “70”. Another released contrails in the red, white and blue of the Russian tricolour that mixed into a pastel smudge across the sky.

Many onlookers wore “pilotka” caps, and some, including children, were done up in old-fashioned green uniforms cinched with Soviet-era belts.

Among the crowd was a small group of men wearing camouflage fatigues and patches with the flag of Novorossiya, the contested region of southern and eastern Ukraine claimed by pro-Moscow separatists.

One of them, Andrei, 39, who goes by the nom de guerre “Doc”, said he had returned to Russia in December after fighting as a volunteer against Ukrainian troops at Donetsk airport.

The two wars – in 1941-45 and today in Ukraine – were linked, Andrei asserted. “Today the Ukrainians fight with the name of Bandera on their lips just as they did in the Great Fatherland War,” he said, naming a Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the Nazis against Soviet forces. “Now we are fighting fascism once again.”

Asked what he thought of Western leaders who boycotted the festivities, Andrei said: “Screw them. Peter the Great said Russia only has two allies, the army and the fleet; all the rest are temporary. You find out your friends when you’re in trouble. China is our great partner these days."

Chinese soldiers march along Red Square during the Victory Parade in Moscow (AP)

Mr Putin seemed to think the same. A column of Chinese troops took part in the Red Square parade, emphasising growing ties with Beijing, and the Russian leader made a point of highlighting Chinese heroism during the war, saying the country "lost many, many millions of people", like the Soviet Union.

As the parade drew to a close, crowds of people headed for Moscow’s parks and squares to continue the festivities.

At Gorky Park on the Moscow River, thousands milled in the sunshine. In the shade of chestnut trees, a handful of veterans smothered in medals sat at plastic tables laden with food, hoisting themselves occasionally on unsteady legs to raise toasts to victory.

Georgy Plotko, 89, said he had joined up as a teenager in 1943 to serve on ships bringing lend-lease materiel to the Soviet Union from the US and Canada.

“Today is our most sacred holiday,” he said, as well-wishers approached him every few moments with congratulations and handfuls of carnations, which he tucked into a plastic bag. “In the war we never knew if we would survive. The German U-boats attacked our convoys. I still can’t believe I’m alive today, all these years later.”

Mr Obama had not come to the parade because he was “a representative of banking capital” and “it’s all about money and politics”, he added.

A WWII veteran arrives to to watch the Victory Day Parade in Red Square (AFP)

Nearby, Alexander Komaritsy, 67, was escorting two veterans in their 90s who served with his father in a “Katyusha” rocket launcher unit near Stalingrad.

“I’m proud to be the son of a frontline soldier,” said Mr Komaritsy, himself a retired army colonel. “English and Russian blood was mixed in this war, but you have to admit that it was the Soviet Union that brought victory. Our allies opened the second front in Normandy in 1944 when the whole thing was nearly over. Uncle Sam only woke up near the end and decided to get involved for fear of missing out.”

Further down the embankment, Vladimir Polovnikov, 33, was pushing his son Timofey, four, in a handmade model of a T-34 tank made from fibreglass and set on the chassis of a supermarket trolley.

Fixed to the model was a picture of Sergei Gusev, Timofey’s great grandfather, an artillery-unit driver who died in Germany in 1945 as Soviet forces made their final advance to victory in Berlin.

“Western countries say that we represent a threat to the world, but we Russians want to live in peace and friendship, it’s just that nobody believes us,” said Mr Polovnikov.

Displaying tanks and missiles in the centre of Moscow was not a sign of aggression, he added. “Look at the US setting up bases around our country; we’re not doing that to them. It's about telling foreigners we’re ready for everything and that if they want to try a Napoleon or Hitler on us then they’ll know what they’re up against.”

Asked what Western leaders had done by not attending the event, Mr Polovnikov said: “They’ve spoiled their karma, that’s for sure. Whatever our political differences, the millions who died in the war were not to blame.”